Saturday, January 2, 2010

Those in Need Are Lazy. Systemic Poverty Is Not Our Fault.

Yes, I once worked for the woefully dated Investor's Business Daily. In marketing. But that was in the early 90s. I see their philosophy is still recklessly dated and discriminatory. If this doesn't wake you up this morning - should you have an ounce of moral justice in you - I don't know what will.

By Yaron Brook and Don Watkins who ignore facts, logic, the benefits of privilege, social structures, quality education and systemic inequality; and therefore this screed plays on the mythic and fallacious American idea of "all men are equal." By denying that government favors some races and classes over others, they've continued to feed their own - and their reader's - self-righteous ideas of superiority. Assuming that "the needy" are in need because they are lazy or inferior is blatant discrimination.

It is a prime example of ideological unreason. Factless. Hateful. Privileged. The result of poor thinking, and poorer reasoning. Ignorant of how society actually functions. That this sort of 80s and 90s argument can still be made is astounding to me, after "trickle down" and "entitlement" talk has been so disproven by the decimation of the middle class, continued poverty, joblessness, and other unsolved social ills.

But if one is committed to proclaiming this is the greatest country in the world without questioning why or how, without examining statistics that prove otherwise, how will this country continue as such? The superiority of a class or race in this country has been kept by such ignorance of facts - and to our detriment. Only when the underprivileged are able to contribute to society does stability grow. By usurping the "patriotic" mantle, those who work to oppress and demoralize only do damage. Because they fear losing their privilege, the benefits they and their families have generationally received at the expense of "the needy."

In the run-up to the Senate's passage of the health care bill, opponents of ObamaCare denounced it as an unprecedented expansion of government control over medicine.

They warned of the proven consequences of government medicine, pointing to the rationing that occurs in Canada and Europe.

They pointed to the low cancer survival rates in places like Britain. They cited statistic after statistic showing that ObamaCare will raise costs and lower health care quality in America.

They were right — yet it looks like Obama will get his bill. And even if the Republicans are able to pull off an upset, there is no question that over the coming years government control over health will continue to grow.

Why? Consider the history of government involvement in health care.

In the 1960s there was a perception that some elderly were not receiving adequate health care. To meet this need, Congress passed Medicare. The same concern was voiced about the poor. To meet their need, Congress passed Medicaid.

The same concern was voiced about those too destitute (or too irresponsible) to buy health insurance, and in the '80s Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, forcing emergency rooms to treat anyone who needed medical attention, regardless of their ability to pay.

The same concern was voiced about parents who were too well off for Medicare, but who nevertheless couldn't meet their children's health care needs, and in the late '90s Congress passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The message is clear: If you have a need, you are entitled to have it fulfilled at others' expense.

The reason we continue to move toward socialized medicine is that everyone — including the opponents of socialized medicine — grants its basic moral premise: that need generates an entitlement.

So long as that principle goes unchallenged, government intervention in medicine will continue growing, as each new pressure group asserts its need and lobbies for its entitlement, until finally the government takes responsibility for fulfilling everyone's medical needs by socializing the health care system outright.

Some believe you can stop this process midstream: The government will intervene only to help those in dire circumstances while otherwise leaving people responsible for their own health care. But that's an illusion. If need entitles one to the wealth and effort of others, then there is no logical reason why the government should restrict help to some small subset of the "needy," and refuse to help the rest.

1 Comments:

Small Business owners are largely forgotten. Thats why I only focus on them. I have experience several members of my family file bankruptcy due to small business failures. I also I suffered through 2 destroyed businesses due to failure however, in my failings I have learned some of the secrets to success. (Who can say they know it all?)

About Me

The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America will be published by Beacon Press in February 2016.
I'm a writer (and hospice volunteer) living in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and writing primarily about the nexus of death and religion for publications like Guernica magazine (where I'm a contributing nonfiction editor), Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Bookforum, The Baffler, The Guardian, and The New York Times.

I am a Visiting Scholar at The Center for Religion and Media, NYU, and a contributing editor at The Revealer, the Center's publication (where I was editor until June 2013). I write the monthly column, "The Patient Body."

You can find my articles at annneumann.com.
I can be reached at otherspoon@yahoo.com, @otherspoon